While not a new technology at all, USB apparently has become mandatory on any new consumer electronic gadget. There are also some new innovative technologies and products being introduced that use USB as well.
I posted an article about Akimbo which is used on the Sandisk USBTV and Chief Gadgeteer is about to post an article covering Showstoppers which included a neat USB gadget from a Home Automation company called HAI (I have one of their systems so I follow them closely!) which allows you to plug in to any computer and connect to your Home Automation/Security system and control it over the Internet.
Another hot new area for USB is HDTV. Along with Pinnacle’s HD Pro Stick HDTV USB Tuner (which I am currently reviewing), a company called AverMedia showed off a USB HD Tuner. AverMedia is more of a competitor to Hauppauge’s internal tuners but apparently branched out to USB with their popular tuner technology.
Also, I’ve noticed just about every digital media player and even EchoStar’s new DVR provides a USB interface for additional storage. While I don’t have a specific article talking about this I did cover the dueling press conferences between EchoStar and DirecTV. For example, last night the Geeks had dinner with Neuros Technology to learn the progress of their much anticipated OSD product and this morning we had breakfast with MvixUSA to talk about their wireless hi-definition media player and noticed both of these new digital lifestyle products have USB ports, in fact they are USB host ports.
Finally, CES has been the conduit to announce more storage space for USB drives. Verbatim launched an ultra-compact 12GB “Store ‘n’ Go†USB drive which will be available this month for around $179. Sandisk also announced a new Cruzer Contour that weighs in at 2GB, 4GB and 8GB with a minimum read speed of 25 mbps. The Cruzer Contour also includes U3 technology so you can carry your files securely.